


Uncle Andy Asks a Question

by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot)



Series: Uncle Andy [4]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Uncle Andy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 02:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20828132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofcamelot/pseuds/Leahelisabeth
Summary: Andrew and Aaron take Rebecca and Mandy to watch Neil's championship game.  Andrew has plans and his nieces are going to help him carry them out.





	Uncle Andy Asks a Question

**Author's Note:**

> I got a Tumblr ask that goes as follows:  
"So you know how during championships players sometimes have family there? Well Neil invites his The tiny twinlets are Hyped the frick Up and the Twinyards are there with them and it’s a whole great family experience especially when Neil come to them after he wins with the brightest smile"

“What are you hooligans up to?” Aaron asked as he took in the scene in his living room. The place was completely covered in construction paper and glitter. He’d had no idea when his girls were born that having daughters meant that his carpets would always sparkle just a little bit.

“No! Get out!” Mandy shouted. “It’s a secret!”

“I thought we were working on the shouting,” Aaron smirked.

“Daddy,” Rebecca whined, throwing her body over her project to protect it from Aaron’s eyes. “Go away.”

“Yeah, Aaron, go away,” Andrew grinned crookedly, covering his own art project with his hands.

Aaron rolled his eyes. “You better have this cleaned up and be ready to go in ten minutes. That’s when the cab gets here to take us to the airport. Anyone who isn’t ready is missing Uncle Neil’s big championship game.”

“You wouldn’t!” Mandy gasped. She jumped up and ran up the stairs quietly. 

Aaron caught a glimpse of something pink before Rebecca reached her arm out and snatched her sister’s work and shoving that under her torso too. He winced as he could already sense the glue and glitter smearing it all over the front of her clothes.

Andrew handed his to Rebecca, careful to shield it from Aaron’s eyes. “Put these in the ziploc bag on the kitchen table and pack them in my backpack,” he said softly.

Rebecca nodded, her eyes gleaming with mischief. She stood and climbed the stairs much more sedately than her sister.

Aaron came forward and gave his hand to Andrew to help him up.

Andrew groaned and stretched. “I am going to have to stop getting down on the floor with them,” he griped.

“You’re not going to,” Aaron teased. “They have you wrapped around their little fingers and they know it.”

Andrew shrugged. “There are worse things.” He had a curious lightness to his face that Aaron couldn’t place.

“Are you excited?” Aaron asked.

“To go watch an Exy game?” Andrew scowled. “Of course not.” But the corner of his mouth quirked up just a little.

* * *

The flight went just about as well as Aaron expected it to. Meaning Rebecca put her headphones in, picked an inflight movie and ignored them for the entire flight and Mandy pretended to be scared so Andrew would play with her extensive collection of travel board games to “distract her from flying.”

It was transparently obvious to Andrew that she was trying to distract him from his own flying nerves but he humoured her and honestly it helped to get trounced soundly at snakes and ladders by a seven year old, especially since he no longer allowed himself to get drunk on planes when he had responsibilities to his nieces.

Aaron dozed for most of it, trusting his brother to handle any crisis.

Neil couldn’t meet them at the airport. Aaron hadn’t been able to get the friday night shift off at the hospital and so they were cutting it close. Neil was already in his final practice/pep talk before the game. 

“Uncle Matt!” Mandy and Rebecca shouted in unison, running at full speed across the airport to jump in the man’s arms.

Andrew rolled his eyes but jogged after them. Aaron followed at a more leisurely place.

“Where’s Dan?” Aaron asked when he caught up to them.

Matt carefully held the two girls as they talked at him a mile a minute. “She was going to come but then Connor spit up all over them both as we were heading out the door. We didn’t want to be late picking you up for the game so she’s going to meet us there with the kids.”

“Enough talking,” Mandy interrupted. “We have to go now.”

“What do you say?” Andrew asked.

“Let’s fucking go.” Mandy glared.

Aaron facepalmed. Matt looked shocked. Rebecca put her hands over her mouth to giggle madly. Andrew grinned an evil grin.

“I mean, shall we go?” Mandy asked, batting her eyelashes sweetly.

“What happened to please?” Matt wheezed.

“Uncle Andy says I don’t hafta say it,” Mandy said.

Aaron buried his face in his hands. “Yes, but we still ask nicely without using the word ‘fuck.’”

Rebecca squirmed to get down. “We still don’t wanna be late,” she said, a little of Mandy’s attitude creeping into her voice.

Matt opened his mouth to argue but Andrew glared murderously and he thought better of it. “Car’s this way.”

The arena was packed for the championship. Mandy drew back when she saw the crowd. Without a word, Andrew swung her up onto his hip so she could pull up her hood and put her face in his shoulder to block out the noise. She stayed there the whole time as they waited to get in. Thankfully the VIP area didn’t have quite so long a lineup and didn’t have to make their way through the entire stadium and the family and friends area was closed off with big plexiglass windows that significantly muted the noisy stadium. Mandy popped her head up, back to her normal self the moment they were somewhere quieter.

“They have popcorn,” Rebecca said in an even voice.

Aaron crouched down. “I can see that. Is there a question in there somewhere?”

“Do you want some popcorn, Daddy?” she asked.

“I might have some later but I’m not very hungry right now,” Aaron said, still on her level and making eye contact.

Rebecca’s face fell. Aaron waited patiently. His daughter had recently been having problems stating directly what she wanted or needed and it was a habit he and Andrew were trying to nip in the bud.

Rebecca looked distressed but Aaron didn’t push. He sat down on the floor and pulled her down into his lap for a little snuggle, uncaring about the strange looks he was getting from the friends and family of Neil’s teammates and also the heart eyes he was currently getting from one Matt Boyd.

After a few moments of clinginess, Rebecca spoke very softly. “May I have some popcorn?”

“Of course.” Aaron stood and carried her over to the concession. He didn’t make her order, recognizing she had been pushed far enough out of her comfort zone for one day. He took her back to his seat and she sat on his lap, eating her popcorn one piece at a time and calmly waiting for the game to start.

Mandy had stripped off her hoodie to show her mini Josten #10 Wildcats jersey and was dancing at the glass, trying to copy the cheerleaders’ routine. She managed quite a bit of it but obviously couldn’t manage the lifts by herself. She shot pleading looks at Andrew until he sighed, gave in, let her step into his hands, and lifted her over his head.

Aaron could see all the mothers in the room lurch forward instinctively to catch her but his girl had always had impeccable balance. She and Andrew had been doing this since shortly after she turned 6 and Aaron had showed her one of her mom’s old cheerleading videos on a day when grief hadn’t been quite so sharp and memories hurt a little less.

It still hurt to see reminders of his wife in his twin girls but mostly he felt overwhelmingly grateful that Katelyn would never be completely gone as long as he had them.

Andrew looked over, as if sensing that he was being maudlin, and grinned the biggest, fakest, cheerleading grin he could possibly muster and that look on his brother’s nearly always impassive face broke him out of his reverie and shocked him into laughter.

Dan showed up a few minutes later with her four children just as the game began and all six of the children, each one in their own Josten jersey, stood at the window and cheered as the team came out onto the court.

Aaron quickly got sucked in. He’d really only ever been a mediocre Exy player but it had played such a huge part in turning his life around for the better. Everything good in his life had really begun at Palmetto.

Andrew came and sat next to him, making little cutting remarks about the goalie’s technique and completely ignoring the glares from her wife sitting on Aaron’s other side.

“I’d like to see you do better,” the woman finally said in a sniff.

Aaron and Andrew shot each other a glance and Aaron doubled over laughing while Andrew chuckled just a little.

“Mom, that’s Andrew Minyard,” her daughter hissed from beside her, “the only goalie to play an entire season without letting in a single goal.”

The woman turned red, stood, grabbed her daughter and moved to another seat. Aaron laughed again. Matt snorted from behind them and Aaron turned to catch his eye. Dan rolled her eyes at both of them.

It was a fairly close game but Neil scored the winning goal with ten seconds on the clock and the crowd went wild.

Aaron’s girl’s mobbed him and dragged Andrew into the group hug too.

After a few moments, Andrew pulled away. “Come on,” he said. “I got special permission to meet Neil in the hall outside the locker room so we can see him without the crowd.”

Aaron wrinkled his brow. “We can wait up here if you want to see him alone.”

No way,” Andrew said, a wild happiness back in his eyes. “I need my family there for this.”

“The team’s going out for a party after.” Matt caught them as they were heading out. “Did you need a ride to the restaurant?”

“We’ll go with Neil and see you there,” Andrew said.

They were mostly silent on the way down. In the elevator, Andrew cleared his throat and spoke. “This was Neil’s last game as a Wildcat,” he said.

“He’s retiring?” Aaron asked incredulously.

Andrew’s look called him a moron and the man didn’t even need to open his mouth.

“Neil got traded to Columbia!” Mandy shouted and clapped her hands over her mouth.

“Way to spill the beans, munchkin,” Andrew chided. “But yeah, Neil’s coming home.”

“Wow,” Aaron said. “That’s…”

The elevator door opened and Andrew set down his backpack to pull out the ziploc bag. He pulled out four pieces of pink construction paper. Each piece released a cloud of glitter into the air.

“Daddy, you stand here,” Mandy said as Andrew handed out the pieces. Aaron looked down and saw he was holding a sign that said “Will” with a clumsy heart done in glitter over the eye.

Mandy arranged them so they were standing in a line, Aaron on the right, then Rebecca, then Mandy, and Andrew on the end, each with their own piece of paper.

Aaron could guess what was happening but he stepped forward a little to read the papers anyway. Rebecca’s said “you.” Mandy’s was shedding glitter the worst out of all of them and said “MARRY” in big block letters.

Andrew’s sign said “me?” and in his shaking left hand, in a white-knuckled grip, sat a black velvet box that Aaron had never seen before but was oh so familiar.

A choking gasp came from further down the hall and Aaron looked up to realize that Neil had come out of the dressing room and was reading their message.

“Say something, junkie,” Andrew said in a rough voice.

Neil ran, faster than he had all night, faster than his game winning goal, and threw himself into Andrew’s arms for a rough yet tender kiss.

“Are you going to say anything?” Andrew asked when they came up for air.

“It’s still always yes with you,” Neil said softly.

Mandy and Rebecca cheered, hugging their uncle’s around the legs and practically knocking them over with the force of it.

Aaron stood awkwardly on the sidelines, wondering if he should leave, but Mandy leaned out of the hug and gestured impatiently for him to join in and he found it impossible to stay no. Neil tensed a little as Aaron’s arm went around his shoulders but he didn’t pull away and when they all finally broke apart, Neil was grinning at him equally as much as his girls. Andrew didn’t look at him, he was staring at Neil, drinking in his features with the softest look on his face. He wasn’t smiling but somehow this felt more real than if he were.

Aaron couldn’t help remember his own fumbling proposal, Katelyn’s shining eyes as she said yes, the one staggering moment as an entire future was spoken into being by that one little word. Aaron knew exactly how she would feel, what she would say if she were here. Without her, it was up to him.

“Welcome to the family, Neil.”


End file.
